The decision in Roe v. Wade was an activist decision, one with
enormous potential impact on public policy. Justice White, in dissent,
characterized it as "an exercise in raw judicial power" that, "with
no constitutional or legal justification, overrode the decisions made
for people in the states by their state legislatures." It invalidated
traditional state power to make abortion a criminal offense and
forced a shift from an older set of accepted state policies on abortion
to a legal position more in line with newer currents of public
opinion.

Although the decision was framed in terms of traditional
principles and precedents, these principles and precedents were
clearly being used to make new law. Behind the legal formulae
lay issues such as the need for population control, the depletion of
natural resources, the changing status of women, and concern about
illegitimacy, welfare costs, and child care, which were not openly
discussed. Yet the Court was clearly not indifferent to the underlying policy considerations, although it seemed to avoid their
discussion as a matter of conscious strategy. Part of the Court's

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